Commercial test kits are increasingly used by food manufacturers to validate and verify allergen control measures. ELISA-based assays account for the majority of available tests, although PCR-based tests have become more popular. Many of the ELISA test kits are designed to allow quantitative analyses where concentrations of target proteins are determined via measurements of protein antigenicity. Thermal treatments can lead to changes in the solubility and immunoreactivity of proteins. How such changes may affect allergen quantitation by ELISA needs to be understood. Different test kits often target different proteins. Because proteins differ in their susceptibility to thermal denaturation, whether these differences could cause inconsistency in allergen quantitation among different ELISA test kits remains to be determined. Allergen cross contact can occur through the use of common processing media such as frying oils. Detection of allergens in oils, however, can be challenging due to the non-aqueous nature of the samples. Research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial test kits for detection of food allergens in re-used frying oils. This presentation discusses the performance of a number of commercial ELISA test kits for quantitation of thermally processed egg, milk, peanut and almond residues and spiked cooking oils. Factors such as the specificity of the antibody used, the thermal resistance of target proteins, and processing conditions will be discussed. The performance of PCR-based test kits for detection of thermally treated allergens will also be discussed.

Effect of processing on food allergen detection

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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